[Spoilers] What's Sheaim to do? Irgy controlling Tebryn

[Irgy]

Tracking the scores through the last few turns of land coming into play. Originally I thought you got no points for land, then 20 turns into the game you suddenly got points for all of it. I figured out how it really works while trying to make sense of the scores - you get points for land which you've held for the past 20 turns. So, what's been happening?

I'm going to use single letter shorthand based on people's in game names: H = Hannah, V = Varn, W = WarriorKnight, I = Irgy (me), S = Sir Yellow, T = Thessa.

T19: Baseline, no points from land.
H 86 = 53 (4pop) + 3x11(tech)
V 75 = 53 (4pop) + 2x11(tech)
W 69 = 47 (3pop) + 2x11(tech)
I 64 = 53 (4pop) + 1x11(tech)
S 62 = 40 (2pop) + 2x11(tech)
T 51 = 40 (2pop) + 1x11(tech)

T20: Land for everyone except WarriorKnight, who settled a turn late.
H 95 = 53 + 3x11 + 9(land)
V 89 = 53 + 2x11 + 14(land)
S 82 = 47 + 2x11 + 13(land)
I 78 = 53 + 1x11 + 14(land)
T 69 = 47 + 1x11 + 11(land)
W 69 = 47 + 2x11 + 0

Looking at an old demographics screen I can now fairly confidently assign inner ring land as follows: 6(H), 7(T), 8(S), 9(V), 9(I), 9(W).

T21:
* W gets his 14 land points.
* V gets his extra 20 land points for the 12 outer ring tiles.
* T gets 11 points for her (I'm going by leader when I say "her", I dare say the player is him) 2nd tech.

T22:
H 113 = 60 + 3x11 + 20land)
V 109 = 53 + 2x11 + 34(land)
S 103 = 53 + 2x11 + 22(land)
I 98 = 53 + 1x11 + 34(land)
W 89 = 53 + 2x11 + 14(land)
T 88 = 47 + 2x11 + 19(land)

Two population gains made this turn a bit tricky to work out, but I had the top 5 cities screen to help me realise that there was one 5 pop city and at most one 3 or less pop.

T23:
W gets his +20 land points, no other changes.

[Lord Parkin]

It's organising the mana which takes the most time I find. You need sorcery before you can get started at switching the nodes around. Then for every mana node you have less than 4 you need to organise another mana source from somewhere for each tower. The techs I'll get as I get up to each tower, and Strength of Will I plan on snatching relatively early using the Infernal Grimoire.

Yeah, hooking up all the mana does take quite a while to organise. I actually find that most of my games (against the AI at least) tend to end with the Altar rather than the Tower. Maybe it's just my play style, but I frequently find the Altar is simply easier to get to in most games. Of course, that won't be an option for you unless you switch your alignment to good or neutral through religion. (Which could actually be a funny and unexpected move for Sheaim, especially if you couple it with the unexpected Mercurian Gate grab you were mulling over earlier.)

Well, I'm not really an expert with the Sheaim either, although I hope to learn to be one by the time this is over. The zombies and the magic really are kind of separate. As are the planar gate units for that matter. I plan on using all of these things though still. And at least one other sort of living unit too, though I haven't decided which.

Sounds like a good plan.

Because they are slow moving and can't be sped up with haste, the zombies don't have the sort of mobility I would like to have. As such, they're going to have to either provide an unstoppable force, or be relegated to defense where they can use roads to gain some relative mobility. Their vulnerability to the life 2 spell destroy undead is part of that too. Although I assume even with that spell they at least explode and kill the mages involved...

Hmm, I'm not sure... I really haven't played FFH2 competitively with humans much, and since the AI is fairly incompetent at magic I'm still not particularly good at knowing which spells are lethal to which units. (Playing with the AI it never matters much, but playing competitively you'd definitely need to have a good knowledge of those spells.)

[Lord Parkin]

He survived! Yay!

On 0.4 health, 1.7 after I took Guerrila. I figured it's twice as good as combat 1 for keeping him alive in the hills, and there's a lot of hills around. If he's attacked on open land he's doomed anyway. Plus it's not wasted if he somehow survives to be a garrison, I'm bound to settle a hill sooner or later and I can camp his as garrison there.

I was going to say I thought Woodsman I might have been a better pick, but then I remembered that Guerilla I is actually a more powerful promotion in FFH2... plus there aren't that many forests and jungles around compared to what I'm used to. So you're probably right with that promotion pick. Combat could also have been decent if you were expecting him to last a while. Actually I think Combat is a bit overpowered in FFH2, allowing you to potentially double a unit's strength with very few battles, especially if you're Charismatic.

Not much extra news, just some micro to get the Elder Council out a turn earlier:

I swap 2 commerce for 1 but get at least 2 back with the earlier council. And otherwise I swap a food for a hammer, which is what I'd prefer at the moment. It's a real shame there's no more 2 hammer tiles in my BFC, something I didn't really think about when I picked the location (although nowhere else nearby was better).

Neat. That builds a lot quicker than I thought it would... but then I guess you mentioned somewhere that this is Quick speed? I always get a bit disorientated with the build and tech times there. Probably just because I don't use it much.

Well, I discovered some interesting things of relevance today, thanks to finding the FFH source code.

Firstly the bad news that the free experience from the channelling promotions doesn't scale with game speed like it possibly ought to, so the whole magic strategy is weaker than on normal speed (which I'm used to) than on quick.

Hmm, really? Does it scale by a factor of 50% instead of 67%, or something? I'd also be interested to know if the scaling is correct on Epic or Marathon games... might make magic units a lot more powerful there if the scaling is out there too.

Heroes are similarly weaker I suppose though, which is good for me since the Sheaim don't get any - even our official hero Abashi doesn't actually have the "hero" promotion.

Yeah, that's a shame... you research all the way to the end of the tech tree to get access to a cool dragon, and then it's relatively weak compared to the highly experienced units that typically exist by that point in the game due to the lack of a Hero promotion. I always felt the Kuriotates got similarly hard done by with their dragon. Ah well.

The good news though is Potent (and by extension Arcane) is better than I thought. To explain this I'll explain how the free magic xp works.

Each unit has a "SpellCasterXP" value. By default of course it's zero. Chanelling 1, 2 and 3 add 20, 30 and 40 to this value respectively (for a total of 90 for an Archmage for instance). Potent adds another 20.

At the start of each turn, a unit has a chance of gaining 1xp. That chance is equal to ("SpellCasterXP" - experience), as a percentage. So Hemah for example has a 90% chance of gaining 1 xp the turn after he's created (as well as another 1 xp from the hero promotion), while an ordinary adept has a 20% chance. Once they get experience though it slows down, reaching a cap of 20xp for an adept or 110xp for a potent archmage.

So, the potent promotion gives more than double the rate for the important first 10 xp to get to a mage - in fact for the last gain from 9 to 10xp it's 2.8x more likely to happen each turn. After that the relative benefits slow down a bit, but it's still nice to have an xp cap that's 20xp higher. On the whole it's worth roughly an extra level for the most part.

In the end, potent will make my mages level about as fast as they would have on normal speed. So I'm roughly back where I started I guess

Back to where you started maybe, but still ahead of your rivals in the game.

Thanks for the explanation of how spellcaster XP gain works - didn't know that before, good to have as a reference.

[Irgy]

I was going to say I thought Woodsman I might have been a better pick, but then I remembered that Guerilla I is actually a more powerful promotion in FFH2... plus there aren't that many forests and jungles around compared to what I'm used to. So you're probably right with that promotion pick. Combat could also have been decent if you were expecting him to last a while. Actually I think Combat is a bit overpowered in FFH2, allowing you to potentially double a unit's strength with very few battles, especially if you're Charismatic.

Yes, guerilla is 40% while woodsman is 30%. However, woodsman notably now gives you a bonus on attack, so it's been improved quite a bit too. The thing is though I don't plan on attacking barbarians with him, especially not ones with defense bonuses (although admittedly the 30% bonus more than cancels their 25%).

Neat. That builds a lot quicker than I thought it would... but then I guess you mentioned somewhere that this is Quick speed? I always get a bit disorientated with the build and tech times there. Probably just because I don't use it much.

Yep, quick speed. I've been playing nothing but in all my single player and self play games since this started, so I'm starting to get used to it. I actually quite like how fast everything is. Explains a bit what I didn't like about civ5, everything there just takes forever to build, and it's painful.

The hammer focus and 50% bonus probably helped with the speed too, as well as not posting many updates on the uneventful turns in between

Hmm, really? Does it scale by a factor of 50% instead of 67%, or something? I'd also be interested to know if the scaling is correct on Epic or Marathon games... might make magic units a lot more powerful there if the scaling is out there too.

Sorry, when I said "doesn't scale like it ought to", I meant it doesn't scale at all, even though it probably should. The rate is constant relative to unit movement and healing and everything else that doesn't change with game speed. It's just a % chance per turn.

Yeah, that's a shame... you research all the way to the end of the tech tree to get access to a cool dragon, and then it's relatively weak compared to the highly experienced units that typically exist by that point in the game due to the lack of a Hero promotion. I always felt the Kuriotates got similarly hard done by with their dragon. Ah well.

Yeah, and it's the end of a line of the tech tree that all the units have been taken out of for the Sheaim too Still, I expect the dragon is pretty awesome even without the hero promotion. Coming as late as it does, hero wouldn't be as effective anyway.

Thanks for the explanation of how spellcaster XP gain works - didn't know that before, good to have as a reference.

So many things that need better references. But it's fun discovering it all anyway.

[Lord Parkin]

Working a sage, great sage for the Academy is due on T38.

Wow, that's impressively early. You'll definitely want to get those Gems hooked up ASAP to take full advantage of that super-early Academy, then.

Goblins are chasing my warrior, stopping him from healing. These goblins are from the same fort as the ones that chased my scout earlier. I'm running him for the moment, but will make a stand on a forest hill. Was going to make a stand on a jungle hill, but goblins have a 10% jungle attack bonus and I need all the help I can get. He as moved twice now, hasn't revealed anything particularly interesting.

Okay. Hope he can heal soon. The more he moves around the more he risks being caught with his pants down by some other barbarian unit. (Probably one of the ones that I most despise - Griffons and Spiders, both able to attack without you having even seen them.)

This turn, I got a positive event - some free research. Not terribly exciting but certainly can't complain. This messes a bit with my micro - the tech will definately be finished before the worker now. That's kind of good though, as once he's finished the wines he has nothing to do until Mining finishes.

Oh well, free stuff is never bad. It's funny how the tech-hurrying event is relatively lame when you encounter it in FFH2, just by comparison to all the other super events in that mod (like ones where you get Settlers or Great Prophets). In BTS getting a boost on a tech would be viewed as "overpowered!"... not so here.

Playing a blitz session tonight (well, tonight in my timzone anyway). Hopefully that wil bring some more progress.

Heh... I remember PBEM blitzes from several years ago. Haven't done any in ages, since I discovered the wonders of pitboss. A few hours of "blitz" in PBEM might mean 5-10 turns, in pitboss it could be 50-100 turns. Of course, you have more time to think about what you're doing in PBEM and avoid making as many silly mistakes.

An ethical question for the lurkers:
Is it bad form to load old saves from previous turns to look at the demographics screen?

I shouldn't need to anyway, I've been making a point of screenshotting the scores each turn, and the demographics roughly every second or third turn. Just something I wondered about.

I'd say it's perfectly fine. Otherwise you're simply rewarding the guy who's anal enough to take screenshots of every screen every turn. Besides, it's not like you can alter anything by looking up past turns anyway.

Tracking the scores through the last few turns of land coming into play. Originally I thought you got no points for land, then 20 turns into the game you suddenly got points for all of it. I figured out how it really works while trying to make sense of the scores - you get points for land which you've held for the past 20 turns. So, what's been happening?

Well, you're certainly more game than me for doing this level of demographic analysis. I don't think I'd usually bother, but it's useful to have around if you have the time to put in.

[Irgy]

Heh... I remember PBEM blitzes from several years ago. Haven't done any in ages, since I discovered the wonders of pitboss. A few hours of "blitz" in PBEM might mean 5-10 turns, in pitboss it could be 50-100 turns. Of course, you have more time to think about what you're doing in PBEM and avoid making as many silly mistakes.

In fact I've heard entire one-session multiplayer games don't take more time than a couple of pbem "blitz" sessions Although at least I can clean the house and do the washing up at the same time - it runs for a while but you're not doing anything for most of it.

[Lord Parkin]

Yes, guerilla is 40% while woodsman is 30%. However, woodsman notably now gives you a bonus on attack, so it's been improved quite a bit too. The thing is though I don't plan on attacking barbarians with him, especially not ones with defense bonuses (although admittedly the 30% bonus more than cancels their 25%).

Ah, right. It's actually a shame both Guerilla II and Woodsman II are locked off to later technologies - the first-level promotions would be more worth taking in FFH2 if the second-level ones were available. I've always thought that they should unlock those second-level promotions while bringing back Guerilla III and Woodsman III - which could be locked off to later technologies. But anyway, that's a bit irrelevant here.

Yep, quick speed. I've been playing nothing but in all my single player and self play games since this started, so I'm starting to get used to it. I actually quite like how fast everything is. Explains a bit what I didn't like about civ5, everything there just takes forever to build, and it's painful.

Do you like Quick speed in regular BTS? Personally I really dislike Quick games in BTS, unless they're on the smallest possible map size (and even then I'm dubious). However, FFH2 does move a lot slower than BTS - especially at the start - so I think I could bear with it more there.

Sorry, when I said "doesn't scale like it ought to", I meant it doesn't scale at all, even though it probably should. The rate is constant relative to unit movement and healing and everything else that doesn't change with game speed. It's just a % chance per turn.

Ah, got you. So magic units (as well as Heroes) would definitely be a lot more potent in Epic and Marathon games. Hmm, maybe I'll try that out sometime - although I guess it'll just even further disadvantage an already struggling AI.

Yeah, and it's the end of a line of the tech tree that all the units have been taken out of for the Sheaim too Still, I expect the dragon is pretty awesome even without the hero promotion. Coming as late as it does, hero wouldn't be as effective anyway.

Hero's still incredibly handy to have, though, just for those initial few promotions to get the ball rolling. In my limited experience with the Kuriotates' dragon (which I've played with more often than the Sheaim one), you usually have to nurture it quite carefully for the first few battles, before it can get its strength up enough to start competing with the highly-promoted units near the end of the game.

Once you get past a certain critical point though (usually around 20-30 XP), it starts becoming useful as a decent unit in itself. I imagine the Sheaim dragon would have the same problem, if not a bit worse due to its lower base strength. So yeah, missing Hero does hurt a bit. Still, by that stage of the game it probably won't make much difference.

[Lord Parkin]

In fact I've heard entire one-session multiplayer games don't take more time than a couple of pbem "blitz" sessions Although at least I can clean the house and do the washing up at the same time - it runs for a while but you're not doing anything for most of it.

True. I don't ever get anything useful done when I'm playing a pitboss blitz. (As my girlfriend always reminds me.)

[Irgy]

Do you like Quick speed in regular BTS? Personally I really dislike Quick games in BTS, unless they're on the smallest possible map size (and even then I'm dubious). However, FFH2 does move a lot slower than BTS - especially at the start - so I think I could bear with it more there.

Well, I haven't played any BTS since starting this anyway come to think of it. Not sure how it would go. I definately agree FFH2 starts very slowly and that quick speeds that up is a good thing.

I must admit though so far all those games have kind of been abandonned fairly early. Right now I'm getting to that singularity point in the current one (where I've gone for instance from 75 turns required for sorcery to 4 in just a few turns), and the tech rate is getting a bit ridiculous. So I'll see if the late game changes my mind I guess.

[T-hawk]

An ethical question for the lurkers:
Is it bad form to load old saves from previous turns to look at the demographics screen?

I think that's considered OK. Theoretically you could get that same info anyway by meticulously writing down everything every turn. So it's just a time and effort saver to make it okay to go back and look later.